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If this be bigamy, make the most of it! :-)

William Mays and Eva Kamp married in an Oklahoma Presbyterian church in 1925.

In 1928, they married in a Roman Catholic church in the next county.

The state has records for both. I do know they are the same couple. Unlike many other marriage records I've seen, neither form has anything about whether or not previously married.

I am not sure how to look up Oklahoma's laws and customs at that time. Should I be looking for a divorce or annulment between? Should I assume they went to the next county because the first county would have rejected a second license application?

Should each marriage be treated as a separate family in GEDCOM?

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    The answer to whether it's a separate family in the GEDCOM depends on how you interpret the two events. If you find a divorce between the two, then many would say that's 2 families in the GEDCOM. If however, it's interpreted as 2 different ceremonies because they wanted to reaffirm their marriage in the 2nd denomination, then that's 2 events for the one family, I suggest.
    – AdrianB38
    Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 8:44

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One thing to research is their later church affiliation. One possibility is that between 1925 and 1928 they changed their religious conviction. The Roman Catholic church, at the time, may not have recognised their first marriage in a Presbyterian church and on conversion to Catholicism they had to re-marry in the RC church so that the marriage was recognised.

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  • Yes, I know Catholics today who distinguish between their civil marriage and their marriage "in the church". My own Irish Catholic gg-grandparents have two marriage records, four years apart. Was there a Catholic Church near the location of William & Eva's first marriage? Maybe their desire to marry outweighed the religious considerations at the time.
    – cleaverkin
    Commented Aug 25, 2021 at 2:44

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